#also i wonder what songs are on the mp3 player...

[lokimobius]

💙 and lokius 🥺💕

This was SO much fun to write that I got a little bit carried away. I hope you enjoy silly, drunk Mobius!

💙 drunken kiss / tipsy

Loki had lost sight of Mobius at some point during the evening. The TVA staff were celebrating Casey’s promotion to Assistant in Repairs and Advancements. He spent so much time down there and had so much knowledge that it only made sense for him to officially change his role. 

They could do that now. They decided for themselves what they wanted to do. 

So, they celebrated. Mobius told B-15 about the collection of alcohol that Ravonna kept in her office. Apparently, she stole some from every mission that she went on. For someone who was so obsessed with the rules, Ravonna sure did seem to break them when it benefited her. 

However, she and those rules were long gone, and they were able to work and live freely.

B-15 and Mobius had used a trolley to cart all of the alcohol into the cafeteria. O.B. found an old MP3 player in one of his many "junk drawers" that he hooked up to some speakers, and they dimmed the lights to make the atmosphere feel like nighttime.

It didn’t take long for everyone in their area to show up. Once they heard that there’d be alcohol, they finished their work quickly, excited to try all of the drinks that Ravonna had hidden away. 

Loki loved a good party as much as the next person, but he was well aware that the TVA workers were all humans—humans who hadn't had the opportunity to build up a tolerance to alcohol. 

He stood in the corner of the room, nursing his sixth glass of wine. Midgardian drinks were weak in comparison to those elsewhere in the universe, and he barely felt a buzz. 

His eyes scanned the room, hoping to spot Mobius so they could go back to their apartment. Agents and hunters mingled loudly, laughing amongst themselves. Loki smiled at the jovial atmosphere; he'd never seen everyone so relaxed. 

“Hey there.” A voice shook him out of his daze, and he looked to his side to see a wobbly Mobius making his way over to him. 

“Do you always haunt the corners of parties?” He laughed, stumbling into a nearby table. “So, uh, can I get you a drink?” 

Loki raised his eyebrows at Mobius and lifted his glass of wine in answer. 

“Right. Right…” Mobius said, blushing slightly. 

What was going on with him? 

“I, um,” he began, awkwardly avoiding eye contact. “I was wondering if you were single?” 

Loki’s jaw dropped, and he stared at his partner in disbelief. He couldn’t be serious. Right? Surely the alcohol couldn’t make him forget their relationship? Could it?

“I'm taken, actually...” 

Mobius scowled and huffed slightly, and he shifted his weight from one foot to another. 

“Who’s the lucky person, then?” he asked petulantly. He took a swig of the drink in his hand and swirled the ice around, avoiding eye contact with Loki. His bottom lip jutted out in a pout. 

Mobius was sulking. Loki laughed. This was absolutely ridiculous, and he would never let Mobius live this down. 

He flashed his most charming smile and stepped closer into Mobius’ personal space. Mobius’ eyes met his, and they widened considerably, obviously taken aback at the closeness. 

“You are,” Loki purred, leaning close to his ear. 

Mobius spluttered, nearly spilling his drink. “I am?! How’d I manage that?” The shock made him sway to the side suddenly, and Loki grabbed him by the waist to steady him. 

“Wow,” Mobius said, looking up at Loki starry-eyed. “I scored big time. The most gorgeous person in the room? And you’re my partner?" 

He laughed loudly, and his drink sloshed in his glass as he threw his head back. “Oh, triple M, you’ve done it again!” 

Triple M? Oh, Loki was definitely not letting him forget about this. 

Loki placed his drink on the table closest to him and came back to pluck Mobius’ glass from his hands. Mobius protested with a little “hey!” and reached out for the drink dramatically, as if Loki had taken something precious from him. 

“I think it’s time I took you home, don’t you?” 

Mobius blushed again, red spreading from his cheeks all the way down his neck. Loki smirked. 

“Well, that’s very- yes!” Mobius cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “That’s very forward of you.” 

Loki returned his arm to Mobius’ waist and steered him out of the room, making his way as quickly as he could to the closest elevator to the living quarters. 

“We live together, Mobius.” 

“We do?!” Mobius smiled, slumping into Loki’s side as they waited for the elevator doors to open. “That’s great!” He closed his eyes and leaned further into Loki. “Fantastic,” he said under his breath. 

The ding of the elevator made Mobius jump, and Loki laughed quietly to himself. 

He propped Mobius up against the elevator wall and pressed the button for their floor. 

No sooner had the doors closed, he felt himself being shoved up against the wall. His back pressed hard against the railing, and he arched his back slightly to accommodate it, in the process pushing his body closer to Mobius’. 

He looked down to see a very flushed Mobius. His pupils had dilated, and they flicked down to Loki’s lips before looking back up to make eye contact with him. 

Mobius slowly removed his hands from Loki’s shoulders and placed them on either side of Loki’s head, caging him against the wall. 

Loki’s heart quickened in his chest as Mobius inched closer, nuzzling at the underside of his jaw. His breath hitched at the contact, and Mobius hummed before pressing his lips against Loki’s. 

It started out gentle; Loki could tell Mobius was being cautious. Perhaps he still didn’t believe that they were together. The thought made him smile against Mobius’ lips. 

The act made Mobius moan, deepening the kiss with a swipe of his tongue. It was messy; Mobius lacked any control in his inebriated state, and he tasted like alcohol. Their teeth clacked together, and Loki winced slightly. He placed his hands on either side of Mobius’ face in order to steady him, but that just made him moan louder, and he pushed his body impossibly closer. 

A ding and a slide of the elevator doors startled the both of them, and Mobius jumped back, wiping his lips on his shirt sleeve. 

A blonde analyst stood frozen at the threshold, mouth agape, very obviously scandalised at the sight she’d walked in on. 

“Oh, I do apologise, miss.” Loki flushed. “We’ll be on our way now!” 

Loki quickly glanced to see what floor they were on and grabbed Mobius’ hand to drag them out into the hallway. 

Mobius giggled to himself, swaying on his feet as he trailed behind Loki. 

“Is this something we do a lot?” He asked, slurring his words slightly before adding, “Mischief?” 

Loki laughed as he unlocked their door. 

“Oh, you have no idea.” 

[dropthedemiurge]

Let Free The Curse of Taekwondo: Things you didn't notice #1

Isn't this another K-BL where I'm internally squealing because of every single detail? You bet it is. You can read my other meta/cultural detail/Korean language posts for Love for Love's Sake, Time of Fever, Grey Shelter and Boys be Brave on my pinned post or hashtags^^ (I really need to organize it under one singly hashtag tho...)

I already talked about how impressed I am with the fact that this series has done their preparation job well, with props, settings, language, history etc.

It is about a countryside/small town in Southern province of Korea - because a lot of characters use satoori (southern dialect), almost all of them except for the main two guys. There is also a distinct contrast/conflict between 'fancy Seoul rich guys' looking down on 'Southern town'. Juyoung even was surprised Dohoi doesn't use satoori.

To which, he responded with 'You'll be uncomfortable if I use it". And Juyoung said there are plenty other uncomfortable things around here, beside understanding/listening to everyone using other accent xD Confusing Gaga translation errors, we meet again!

Actually, it's interesting because Dohoi's name is written 이도회 in Korean, which typically would be written as 'Dohoi' but pronounced as 'Dohwe' (think of surname Choi that is actually pronounced as Chwe), yet in the first episode I clearly heard them actually say 'Dohoi', letter by letter. Now I wonder if it's also related to satoori... I wish I could speak it, it sounds so cool tbh.

He actually said 'I'm not in a good condition', meaning his physical form. What do you mean, mood, when was that ever an excuse in sports..?xD

By the way, what is it with boys trying to get closer to other boys by buying them unusual ice cream?:') Okay, garlic sounds more weird than red bean one :D

Also, I tried to find the Hasong town they talked about but failed - maybe because of incorrect transcription or maybe they made up this town based on Uiseong - a small town close to Daegu which is famous for being the most famous garlic town, they produce a lot of it and garlic fame would be seen everywhere - so who knows, I bet they allude to this when Juyoung said 'why can't there be a vanilla garlic ice cream? It's like a collaboration!'

Another thing, I thought the time of this series was somewhere around 1990s-2000s (because I watched a movie in similar setting that was called 1997 year but they still used pagers, now that I think about it). It was also still the time where teachers could use physical punishment on their students, it's heavily highlighted but I don't actually know around what time they stopped... Probably in Seoul, they already were getting rid of it but in small towns it was old-school teaching, which is again why Dohoi tried to tell Joyoung out of it.

I'm not familiar when small laptops and phones appeared in Seoul but I think the series is actually somewhere around 2005-2010! Which would make sense, Juyoung got the 'cool' flip-phone and a laptop with Windows XP (released in 2001) but small town is still far from that, as they use landline house phones to make a call.

He also has mp3 player and as other tumblr folks figured out, he was listening and dancing to Jewelry song released in 2005 :)

And another thing that convinced me about the time era... the final scene!

Do you want to know why at the end of Ep 1 Dohoi smiled and laughed and ran to Juyoung even after so many exhausting days and neverending small miseries and a new loud housemate?

Because Juyoung not only came to pick him up with an umbrella in the acid rain, he also reenacted the famous umbrella scene from the classic romantic K-drama called "Temptation of Wolves" (늑대의 유혹) which was released in 2004! To make Dohoi laugh.

(Yes, when Juyoung intentionally put the umbrella down and the camera cut the shot to the framing when the umbrella slowly lifts up, showing smiling Juyoung, I was like 'you did nooooooot' xD)

(last screenshots taken from @heretherebedork post, I'm sorry I am very lazy and cannot take a good screenshot for life :'))

So that was already our very first romantic teasing-implication!

Another cute thing: optimistic Joyoung wrote a diary entry into the fake old Korean "Facebook" (they had Cyworld instead) to share his first selfie with Dohoi:

"[Excited Shin Jjuyoung]" (typing in a popular back then teenage style) "I miss you guys... But here it's nice too hehe ^___^ Come to play with me!! Together with my friend Dohoi too~~!"

Aren't they the cuteestttttt? I mean, this dynamic is not new but I love how unique the setting is. And I can't wait to watch the second episode, I'm waiting and savoring the first one for now but I'm going to make notes about other episodes as well so stay tuned! If you reply/comment in tags, I will put you in my tag list^^

Tag list: @benkaben @pickletrip @troubled-mind

[nerdiel-has-no-braincells]

Cat Nap

ft. gojo satoru x gn!reader

summary: gojo had just gotten an earful from his teacher and is seeking you out. what he finds is unexpected ❦

a/n: i’ve been working on this short one for a while deciding on how long i actually wanted it but decided to keep it short but sweet

Satoru stretched as he walked through the halls of Jujutsu college. Yaga had given him another lecture about his lack of attention in the classroom. While Satoru had stayed behind, Shoko and Suguru had snuck off to smoke. You, however, disappeared, and he was trying to find you.

He knew you weren’t inside the school — the sun was shining and the weather itself was perfect for you being late Spring. You enjoyed spending time outside so Satoru knew you were outside somewhere.

Opening the door to the outside hall, his eyes wandered around, looking for that familiar figure.

Hands in his pockets, he wandered outside. You weren’t in the training grounds, you weren’t in the forest nor were you near the vending machines. He had one place to check, which was your favorite tree. The tree was big enough to shade you from the sun without taking away the warmth. Often Satoru would find you there and eventually it became the group’s lunch spot. It had a nice view of the city and the cherry blossoms in the Spring. It easily became his favorite spot as well.

As he neared the tree, Satoru looked up to see the top of your head. A smile appeared on his face as he felt his heart pound as he got closer to you.

Standing in front of you, Satoru tilted his head to the side and let out a quiet chuckle. You had fallen asleep, leaning against your favorite tree, earbuds in your ear and your mp3 player beside you. You were too cute.

Taking out his flip phone, he took a picture of you as you slept, making it his background.

The smile on his face matched the feeling in his heart; warm as he looked at his new background.

Putting his phone back into his pocket, he sat down next to you leaving no space. He told himself that he wanted to be there for you in case you fell over but in actuality he wanted to touch you.

He slowly and gently took your hand and held it, rubbing the pad of his thumb against your soft skin.

Looking at you, he wondered what you were listening to so he reached his free arm around and gently took out one of your ear buds and set it into his ear so that he could also listen to your music.

A warm and comforting song was playing and he immediately recognized what song it was—he’d caught you singing it one day when you were passing the training grounds on your way to the vending machines.

He felt at peace. It was the perfect sunny day where he spent time with the one who was perfect for him listening to the perfect song.

Closing his eyes, he let himself relax and lull into a deep sleep.

Shoko and Geto wandered around looking for the two of you. Satoru was meant to find you but it had been an hour with no word causing them to find Satoru as well.

What surprised them was the sight of you and Satoru sleeping against the tree, holding hands, your head on his shoulder and his head on top of yours, the two of you connected by earbuds. A smile was formed on your face while you slept as if you were dreaming of this exact moment.

The sight made Shoko and Geto want to let out an audible ‘awww’ but they didn’t want to risk waking you up.

Instead, they took out a camera and took a photo of the two of you.

Shoko planned on printing two copies; one for you and one for Satoru. The two of them knew of your feelings for each other, but the both of you were blind to the other’s feelings. She secretly hoped this would help you understand each other’s feelings and finally, finally get together.

Turning back around, they decided to let the two of you have your time together. They’ll just tell Yaga they couldn’t find you once training started.

tags: @mrsyixingunicorn10 @cinnaa-x @xamilarin @cloudsinthecosmos @rivaiken @vr00m-vr00m @shycreatorsandwich @the-fab-killjoy

Sequel to Cat Nap here

Jujutsu Kaisen belongs to Gege Akutami

©️nerdiel-has-no-braincells Please do not copy, translate, and post as your own. Reblogs, likes, and comments are ok with me!

[drvirgus]

Mute!

Non-Idol! Hanni X Mute! Reader

Description: Life as a mute girl in university: How does Y/n navigate her life, especially when she has to work on a project with her crush, one of the popular kids on campus? Can Y/n find a way to express her feelings?

Warnings: Trauma; strong language; kys/kms jokes; insults; bad family 😔 (kind of abuse?)

Chapter: Double Date (fully-written)

Masterlist

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With a smile on my face, I stood down the street, waiting patiently for Hanni, who was just parking the car in front of me and hastily getting out. She almost stumbled over her own feet but fortunately caught herself on the hood. A laugh escaped her throat as she looked at me to check if I had seen it.

I immediately turned my head away from her so it wouldn't be too embarrassing for her. "I know you saw it," I heard Hanni say. "Look at me. I want you to look at me," she said with a smile, so I turned my head back to her. Her smile grew wider. "Hey," she said softly, which made my smile even broader. My cheeks even turned a little red.

Hanni chuckled. "Shall we?" she asked as she opened the passenger door of her car for me. She had to pull a bit harder since the door seemed difficult to open. No wonder... the car didn't look particularly safe.

Hanni laughed, a bit embarrassed. "I should have taken Minji's car instead, right? Wait here. I'll quickly drive to Minji and switch—," Hanni said, overwhelmed, as she tried to close the passenger door again. But I held her by the forearm and simply shook my head with a smile.

Her eyes widened as she watched me get into her car. Hanni visibly swallowed, and the redness on her cheeks was unmistakable. But, well... love made one blind... that's probably why I didn't notice it.

With a clearing of her throat, Hanni closed the door and moved behind the driver's side, buckling up immediately. Before she even started the engine, she checked if I was buckled up. "Here. You can play some music. But not too loud, otherwise there will be some interference from the speakers," Hanni said, and I nodded in understanding.

Hanni was probably a bit embarrassed, but it didn't bother me at all. After all, the thing drove. The main purpose was fulfilled, and I didn't need anything more. Now, I stared at my music and glanced at Hanni before looking back at my music. What could she possibly like?

I then played one of the songs that became famous in 2024. Hanni's eyebrows raised as she briefly looked at me and then back at the road. "Play what you like," Hanni said with a smile as she briefly placed her hand on my knee.

So, I played one of my songs, "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper. I immediately relaxed in the car and let the music play. Hanni chuckled. "Oh. This song was also on Yuna's MP3 player," Hanni said, a bit surprised, as she glanced at me.

I immediately shook my head and pointed at myself. Hanni furrowed her brow until the penny dropped. "Oh. That was yours?" she asked, which made me nod. Hanni smiled right away as she kept looking at the road, of course, to avoid an accident. "I like your music," she said a bit quieter, applying a bit more pressure on my knee.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With my hand on Hanni's back, I gestured for her to go ahead of me, which she did immediately. I still had my tablet in hand as I followed Hanni and the waitress to our reserved table. Felix and Hyunjin were not yet present, which made me roll my eyes.

I hated it when others were late...

Hanni sat right next to me since the two seats across from us were free, where the gay couple would sit. I immediately opened my tablet and took my stylus in hand, as Hanni seemed to have a question. The woman beside me noticed and started to laugh a little. "Well, Danielle has a crush on Felix. How long—" Hanni began, but our conversation was interrupted by Felix's snappy remark as he and his boyfriend sat down at our table.

Hyunjin's jaw was tense, his expression dark, while Felix looked as if he might burst into tears, though he also seemed pretty angry. Hanni glanced back and forth between the two, confusion written all over her face. I smiled amusedly and wrote something on my tablet, "It's always like this. Give them 10 minutes, and they'll be in love again."

Hanni read it and laughed a little. She grabbed the menu that a waiter had previously placed on the table. She leaned in closer to me as we ignored the huffing and sighing from across the table, focusing only on the menu.

"Shall we share again? Like last time?" Hanni asked, looking directly into my eyes. My breath hitched as Hanni was closer than I expected. My face reddened, and I gave a thumbs-up, my head hanging low in embarrassment as I stared at the menu.

"I hope you choke on your food."

"Oh, please. You'd be the first to cry."

"Not for you."

Annoyed, I rolled my eyes and waved my left hand in front of Felix's face, which caught his attention immediately. I pressed my lips together and gestured first to my eyes and then to the menu.

"She says to shut up and finally decide what you want to eat," Hyunjin suddenly said, leaving me open-mouthed in shock. Hanni beside me giggled a bit as she looked at the three of us. I promptly slapped her thigh gently, which made her laugh even louder.

Now Felix laughed too, and I couldn't help but join in. A nearly choking sound escaped my mouth as I laughed. Even Hyunjin, who had remained serious the entire time, started laughing at my unusual laugh. Our table was filled with laughter.

I was the first to calm down since no sound came out of my mouth anymore, though I was still laughing silently. My hand hit Hanni's arm repeatedly as I laughed. She had her hand on my thigh, also hitting me as she laughed along.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, how long have you two been together?" Hanni asked eagerly as she stole a bit of my pasta. A smile formed on my face as I watched her hold out her fork for me to try her food as well. I tasted it immediately, without feeling the stares of the two men on us. Felix's grin was unmistakable.

"Uh, I'm pretty bad at remembering dates," Felix admitted, turning his head to Hyunjin. "How long has it been? Four years?" he asked, and even Hyunjin had to think for a moment. He then responded with the exact date, causing Felix's eyes to widen. Shortly after, his expression relaxed, and he turned more toward his boyfriend.

My eyebrow raised as I observed Felix and Hyunjin looking at each other lovingly, exchanging a knowing glance with Hanni. Felix suddenly gasped and looked back at me, his hand on his chest. "I forgot to tell you," he said dramatically.

"Yeji is back."

My smile faded as I simply nodded in response. I noticed how Hanni's curiosity intensified, especially after seeing my reaction. "Who's Yeji?" she asked, making me flinch slightly. My jaw clenched a bit more than before. "My sister," Hyunjin said quietly with a sigh.

Hanni's forehead wrinkled visibly as she looked first at Felix, then Hyunjin, and finally at me. Felix sighed, "She and Y/N... were together once or... something like that," he explained, almost angrily looking at Hyunjin, who raised his hands defensively. "It's not my fault," Hyunjin said, making Felix sigh again.

Hanni hummed and leaned closer to me. "So, do we hate her?" she asked, surprising me. My eyes widened as I looked at the person next to me. I felt myself relax and leaned a bit more into Hanni as I shook my head.

"Definitely. That bitch... why is she back?" Felix asked, looking at Hyunjin, who just shrugged.

I continued eating. I didn't want to know anything about it...

I didn't care anymore...

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Taglist: @sixflame438 @saysirhc @itzzyyyyyyydaaaa @somedaydream @wonyoungssi @gtfoiydlyj

[junk-culture]

why do you hate spotify so much?

😈 BECAUSE I'M THE HATEFUL HATER 😈 HATER IS MY NAME HATING IS MY GAME 😈 🤬😡💥💣❌��

and because i just do not comprehend why people use it. like pay for it i mean. why on earth are you paying £10 per MONTH to listen to music on your device when you could do this for free in a million ways. it's baffling to me.

plus the general fatigue of everything being a subscription service these days. why do i have to have a monthly subscription in order to listen to my music. i just want to own my mp3s and have them in my device files permanently to do with as i please. offline and for the beautiful cost of nothing and forever and ever.

and this isn't a "you should support artists by paying for their songs" situation because we all know that artists make 0.00001% of a penny from spotify streams. there's literally no reason to be paying that much. like it's so unserious. £10 a month just for the privilege of listening to some mp3s without ads. insane to me. and the fact that you have limited skips and it's shuffle only in non-paid for mode is like the most wretched thing on earth. like it's basically unusable unless you pay.

and like okkkkkk it's "useful" and "fun" in that you have access to billions of artists and you can discover music but hello you can do that for free on youtube or from talking to people or going to a cd shop. and i do get that it's fun to make playlists and share them with people but again you can do that in other ways. the meme playlists are funny though im not denying that.

and like i said before the statistics part of it/the wrapped stuff is so silly to me. can we not just enjoy music organically as and when the whim strikes instead of trying to get the most streams in order for some bullshit algorithm to declare you "top" listener. and it's not even accurate anyway.

spotify is just not for me basically. im not being serious when i make fun of spotify users like i don't think they should die but me personally i can just never use spotify for music. music is like my best friend in the world and so special to me and i don't want her sullied by big spotify.

plus im a pretentious physical media lover and also very concerned about the endangered species known as the Full Album. the way people listen to music nowadays has changed so much, not just because of spotify but the platforms/technology we have now in general and i feel like it encourages people to shuffle around and pick and choose songs and listen to mixes and skip skip skip and never listen to one single full album by one single artist. i get that people enjoy music in different ways but for me the Experience of sitting down listening to a full album is so important and special and also what the artist intended. which is not to say you always have to obey the artists intentions but like. come on. you have to listen to an album all the way through at least ONCE and hear songs in their intended order and then if there's songs you really don't care for you can skip them in future.

really i just think listening to music is not about having the most streams on your public spotify account. it's about picking up your cd case taking out your little colourful disc putting it in your cd player lying on your bed in the dark and doing nothing else except enjoy and experience and ascend to the wonderful tunes. basically im a hater of spotify and a lover of music. [smokes my pipe at you irritatingly in a hipster sort of fashion]

[the-yuri-librarian]

Bloom into You Analysis: Chapter One

Bloom into You tells the story of high school freshman Yuu, as she discovers herself and tries to gain an understanding of "love," which all of her friends seem enamored with. She has never had someone who felt special to her in that way, though she desperately wants to. This all changes when she meets sophomore Nanami, who has also never fallen in love. As they get to know each other, Nanami begins to fall in love with Yuu, though Yuu does not understand why. At the same time, Yuu thinks her chest may be starting to flutter, a feeling that she has longed for but still does not understand...

In this analysis series, I am going to explore Bloom into You chapter by chapter, breaking down what the writing is doing, how what the writing is doing works, and why the series is so popular. But, first, here's my favorite panel from chapter one.

Analysis below the cut

This may be common sense on some level, but the first chapters of most works of fiction typically have the same goals: establish the main character(s) (including their personality and flaws), the setting, the story, and the antagonist(s), as well as any thematic through-lines that will be present in the story. These goals, however, are especially important for a series that is released weekly; when you're reading a novel or a collection of chapters in a manga volume, the writer has a lot more room -- and as a result, leeway -- to take their time laying the groundwork for their story. But, when something is released chapter by chapter on a week-to-week basis, like Bloom into You, it is imperative that the writer does their best to give you, the reader, a reason to come back next week, and the week after that, and so on. The constraints of the weekly release schedule are something to keep in mind as we proceed with this analysis, not just for this chapter, but for all chapters. The constant stress to keep audience engagement high likely had an impact on the writing decisions Nakatani Nio made as she developed this story, for better and worse. With that being said, let's dive in on page one:

Full disclosure: I really love this page. It utilizes a combination of visual storytelling, internal monologue, and the manga itself as a framing device to perfectly establish the protagonist, Yuu, in a single page. Visually, Yuu is laying on her bed listening to music, (presumably) a light novel spread across her lap. The "camera," which serves as the audience's POV, is above her, so she is staring at us as she stares at the ceiling. Laying next to her are a couple of romance mangas, another book, her music player (an mp3 player of some kind), and an open CD case. Even without the inner monologue, you can immediately tell that Yuu is interested in romance. Nakatani then uses Yuu's inner monologue to take the audience's initial impression of Yuu and twist it. She is not interested in love in the same way the average teenage girl is; she is not particularly boy crazy, nor is she very experienced in the ways of love. Instead, she is interested in love precisely because she has never experienced it. She even thinks it herself: "I don't need a dictionary to understand the meaning... But I've never felt them for myself" (v. 1, Ch. 1, page 4; emphasis original). This not only works to make Yuu more complex as a character, but it is also a way to draw the audience in. It leads them to wonder, "Why hasn't she experienced love? Has she been hurt in the past? Or, is something else going on?" And then, finally, in what I genuinely think is brilliant, Nakatani turns the manga itself into a framing device by allowing the title of the chapter to interact with Yuu's inner monologue. The first box of Yuu's inner monologue reads, "The words in shoujo manga and love songs... They're always sparkling brightly" (ch. 1, page 4; emphasis original). She then laments that she knows what the words mean, but she's never felt them for herself. In comparison, the title of the chapter is "I cannot reach the stars." Thanks to the use of bold text for emphasis, Nakatani is drawing a straight line from the monologue to the chapter title. In other words, the stars that Yuu cannot reach are the feelings in the manga and love songs she is lamenting about. This gives the audience incredible insight into Yuu's character, because it tells us right away that not only does she yearn to feel the love that comics and songs talk about, but she also blames herself for her inability to feel romantic feelings, a thought that is going to become a driving force of the plot right away.

The next four pages work to set up the story. In summary, Yuu is not sure what club she wants to join, and one of her teachers recommends the student council, offering for her to sit in on one of their meetings. Yuu agrees because it sounds interesting, but on her way to the student council building, she gets lost. Instead, she stumbles upon a boy asking a girl out, which leads to:

This is our introduction to Nanami, the somewhat deuteragonist, and, more importantly, Yuu's main love interest. As the above image implies, Nanami turns this guy down. Then, she spots Yuu, who admits she is lost, and together they go to the student council building, where Nanami reveals she is a member of the student council. As the chapter progresses, Yuu, and by extension the audience, learns a lot about Nanami, mainly through dialogue. She is a sophomore, ten people (including by some girls) have confessed their love to her since she started high school, and she has turned everyone down largely because she was not interested, but also because "none of their confessions made [Nanami's] heart pound" (ch. 1, page 22; emphasis original). This information is given briskly, and as it happens we watch as Yuu becomes more and more interested in Nanami. At first, it is explicitly because she saw Nanami turn down a confession; her inner monologue in the next scene reveals that Yuu was confessed to at her middle school graduation and has not answered yet. Then, she hangs out with Nanami and Sayaka (Nanami's best friend and fellow student council member and sophomore) the next day, and begins to realize that Nanami is a cool and interesting person. Then, when Nanami reveals she has never felt love, Yuu's interest in her increases exponentially. The pacing and speed at which we are given information really works here, as Nakatani employs Yuu's increasing interest in Nanami to keep the reader engaged while also only highlighting the key aspects of Nanami's personality. She provides the audience enough information to keep us interested, but not so much information we have the full picture. This series of scenes culminates in the final scene of the chapter, when Yuu asks Nanami for advice in the student council room the next day.

On the third day after Yuu meets Nanami, she finds herself exactly as she hoped: alone with Nanami in the student council room. She explains that she has been confessed to and that the boy in question is expecting a response. As she relays this information, Nanami mistakes her intentions and says that she is not the right person to give out advice on this subject. Yuu responds that she's already decided to turn him down. During this conversation, the audience is shown a flashback of the confession, and when the flashback is over, Yuu does just that: she turns the boy down. When she is done and has had a moment to relax, Nanami takes her hand and asks Yuu in clear terms if there has ever been anyone special to her, if she has ever had romantic feelings for anyone. Yuu says no, and this leads to the page that my favorite panel is from:

There is excellent storytelling happening here. At first, Yuu and Nanami are holding hands and standing acorss from each other, then, with a turn of the page, Nanami is pulling Yuu closer. In the next panel, the camera cuts wide, showing us how empty the room is and just how close our lead girls are standing. The perspective shifts here are meant to put the audience on edge and add pressure to the tension that has building all chapter. Then, on the last panel, right as the tension is at its highest, the plot twists, letting the tension release like a stretched rubber band. It's a twist for Yuu too; the confusion on her face is painfully clear, as she begins to realize she has misread Nanami. Then, Nanami voices the realization Yuu is having out loud, informing her that they are not the same, they are different...

...because Nanami is falling in love with Yuu. Just like that, with the flip of a page, the rest of the story is set up. Yuu, the girl who cannot fall in love, has made likely the most popular girl in school fall for her, seemingly because of the explicit fact that she has never fallen in love before. This twist takes the hook that was already in the audience's mouth and sets it into the flesh of their cheek; they're hooked now, and there is no telling where the story will go from here. Not all is perfect, though. In this scene, Nanami actually comes on a little too strongly for my taste, particularly dropping the L word so early. This is likely an effect of the weekly release schedule that I mentioned earlier; Nakatani likely wanted to end the chapter on the strongest note possible, leading to such a powerful confession. Additionally, it is hard to tell how valid this complaint is, as I am dealing with an admitted constraint: I do not read or write Japanese. This inherently limits my understanding of the scene, because I am perpetually an additional step away from understanding Nakatani's true meaning; not only am I reading the line through my own cultural values and life experiences, but the line itself has been translated from the Japanese, and since translation is itself an art, the translator's own cultural values and life experiences likely affects how they translate it. With that being said, assuming this is not a translator error and the original Japanese does say "love," then there is a moment later in the story that is the ideal place for Nanami to say "love" for the first time (in my opinion at least) that I will point out when we get there.

And, with Nanami's confession, the chapter ends. In the pages of this chapter, we can already see the emergence of the story's main theme: what is love? But, as the characters progress, this story is also going to grapple with questions of bodily autonomy, friendship, and what it means to find your way in the world. This story is, in my view, ultimately a coming-of-age story for Yuu. Not just romantically, but developmentally. She has to find her way in the world when everyone around her seemingly already knows their way. And, it is that journey that makes this story so special.

I hope you enjoyed this analysis! Sorry it was so long. Honestly, there was a lot more I wanted to say, but I ended up summarizing a lot to keep it as brief as I could. Chapter two is fewer pages so it'll be shorter (I hope). Speaking of, chapter 2 will go up on Wednesday, January 10th. Hope to see you then! ^-^

p.s. if you can fluently read Japanese and are interested in helping me on this project, please DM me!

p.p.s here's a cute bonus image from the end of the chapter!

[neurosismancer]

So, let me put on my Internet Old Person hat and tell you kids about the the way we committed music piracy in the long long ago of 2001, and the fragility of those music collections in those days.

You might know Napster. You might know Limewire. But there was a music piracy tool in between those. A little remembered program called AudioGalaxy, and it worked a little like Napster and a little like BitTorrent. The exact details of how it worked are immaterial, but one thing it did was when you searched for an artist, the songs were sorted, in essence, by popularity (e.g. how many people had that specific song file shared.)

Now, I can’t understand why this was a thing, but there was a strange phenomenon in the early days of file sharing and music piracy where people would share songs with the wrong artist name or song title. Certain bands and artists got a lot of stuff attributed to them that they never recorded. “Weird” Al Yankovic may be the most infamous victim of this, with nearly every novelty song and song parody released attributed to him regardless of quality or subject matter.

The confluence of these two phenomena are how I discovered one of my favorite bands of all time.

So, in my late teens, I found a new favorite band. A quickly little one-hit wonder known as DEVO. Y’know, the band that dd “Whip It.” They had the funny red hats that looked like flowerpots. Those guys.

Anyway, I had become obsessed with this band to the point of autistic hyperfixation, and I wanted to hear everything they’d ever put out. At that point, they’d released nine studio albums, a couple live albums, and two collections of early demos, and I wanted them all. So I would find myself crawling in the bottom pages of the AudioGalaxy search results looking for those obscure tracks—b-sides, songs on soundtracks and compilations, the occasional bootleg, They’d pop up between songs that were obviously not by DEVO, and much like our poor friend Alfred Yankovic, any sort of vaguely quirky 80s song got assigned to DEVO.

That was how I found it. A song called, simply, “Detachable Penis.”

Now, I had never heard of such as song, but I knew on the face of it, it wasn’t a DEVO song.

But with a title like that, I knew I had to find out just what in the name of fuck a song called “Detachable Penis” sounded like.

It sounded, dear reader, like this:

(CWs: blurry images of a dildo, the word penis, spoken word poetry)

And I immediately went to Google, because this song somehow tickled an itch in my brain, and I had to go and find out the real band that recorded this song, because how the hell else was I going to get every song I could of theirs I could get my grubby little hands on. The band was called King Missile, and I was hooked.

I’d like to see any music discovery algorithm beat that.

I eventually acquired their entire major discography along with a few EPs and B-Sides. I eventually burned those to a CD, which I could listen to with my MP3 CD Player.

And I realize, upon writing that, for you youth “MP3 CD Player” is a noun phrase that needs explaining. See, while the iPod had been released at that point, and similar devices were also on the market, they were all prohibitively expensive. The economical way to listen to pirated music files was to burn them to CD, but some CD players had software that allows you to burn those song as as _data_. Suddenly, you could have a single CD with 700 megabytes of MP3 files—room for an artist’s entire discography, if not multiple artists.

Since I was download a whole lot of MP3s with my high speed DSL connection, I was taking up an awful lot of space on my hard drive that needed to be offloaded somehow. CD-Rs and an MP3 CD Player were the optimal solution. And it worked…

…until it didn’t.

In the summer of 2002, my parents took me on a vacation to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It was in the latter city where someone got into our rental car and swiped my MP3 CD player and a binder of CDs—both pressed CDs I’d acquired and CD-Rs of illicitly acquired MP3s, along them a CD-R I’d burned containing the nearly complete King Missile discography.

Songs I had only on that one CD-R.

It took me a decade—ten fucking years—before I’d recovered all the music that was on that disc.

This is the sort of discovery and the sort of loss that kids will never experience again in this day of Spotify and the all-you-can-eat buffet of music on demand we have now.

[night-city-valentines]

Hi-Fi Rush Review

I knew nothing about this game prior to its release, other than two things - people said it was similar to Jet Set Radio Future, and it was coming to Game Pass.

I've never played JSRF (but I've always wanted to) and I have Game Pass, so I downloaded and booted it up.

I was hooked from the start.

Hi-Fi Rush is an action-rythym game, with platforming, puzzle, and collect-a-thon elements set on the futuristic island owned by the Vandalay Corporation - a robotics company, currently giving out replacement limbs as part of their 'Project Armstrong'. Our protagonist, Chai, signs up for a replacement arm, but a mishap with his legally-distinct-from-an-iPod MP3 player ending up where his heart should be makes him perceive the world to the beat of his rock music. It also makes him Vandalay's Number One Target, as they label him a defect to be destroyed.

This all happens in the opening cutscene.

The game is gorgeous, going for an animation style similar to Spider-Verse, with the visuals being incredibly comic-like. The anime inspiration is also clear, with all the panicked and OTT movements of Chai as he scraps his way out of trouble. Along the way, you run into a host of other characters, such as a robot cat named 808, a badass hacker called Peppermint, a gentle giant called Macaron, and a therapist robot named CNMN (Cinnamon). And they aren't just supporting characters in the narrative sense, they also help you out in gameplay too (well, not CNMN, but what can ya do). Peppermint can crack through energy barriers with her laser pistols, Macaron can bust through walls and knock heavy objects into place, and 808 serves as an understated beat-counter, their lights pulsing along to the beat of the song that's playing.

808 isn't the only musical gameplay indicator, though. The entire world moves with the soundtrack, not just to the beat, but adding flair to the current track, like platforms rapidly shifting, and certain puzzles following their own beat. Even the combat has rythym to it; security lasers with unique timings, having to attack, dodge, and jump on-beat to do more damage and build your score multiplier, and parriable mini-boss moves that let you get a 1-hit KO. Chai's weapon of choice is a guitar made from scrap, and every hit, combo, and parry comes with a musical element.

The story is a fairly standard fare - Chai wants to GTFO, but he can't until he helps Peppermint take down Vandalay. Full disclosure, I haven't finished the game yet (I'm about halfway done), but what I have played I have adored. The game is packed to the brim with charm too. Chai is a quippy slacker, way in over his head, but loving every minute of his adventure. Peppermint is hot-headed, but bounces off of Chai well, and puts him in his place. The 6 bosses of Vandalay are all wonderful too, from the aggressive Southern wrestler-type Rekka, to the obviously JJBA-inspired Zanzo. Like many games nowadays, Hi-Fi's characters like to make meta-jokes, and while I am tired of that as a concept, in Hi-Fi it's sparing enough that I don't hate it (unlike a certain OTHER Game Pass game that also starts with an 'H').

And the soundtrack, oh MAN the soundtrack. It goes hard. There isn't much more I can say! It features both original and licensed music, but the originals are so freakin good I can barely tell the difference. Obviously if you aren't that into rock music, you won't like it, but that's a matter of preference.

With regards to what I DON'T like, I found the part that teaches you about parrying to be way too obstructive. Like, the otherwise fast-paced game screeches to a halt to teach you about this new mechanic, rather than all the other tutorial segments, which are over really quickly. I also find it hard to stay on-beat, even with the optional big on-screen indicator. This may be a problem with my controller, but more often than not I would hit the buttons in time with the beat, but only like 2 out of a 4 hit combo would be on time, which massively brings down your score, which sucks. Also, some of the combos just...don't work? Like I don't know if I really am doing them wrong, but I do the input, and no special move happens. That sucks too. Also I would have preferred to be given the choice to play as Peppermint over Chai but that's just me being nit-picky, let's be honest.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this game so far. I would definitely recommend trying it out if you have Game Pass, and I'd say it's worth the £30 price tag IF you like the music used. Even then, the gameplay is fun enough that you could mute the music and play to the beat on-screen if you just want a fun hack-and-slash adventure. The game is available on Steam, Windows, and Xbox Series X|S.

Hi-Fi Rush - 9/10

Pros:

- Great soundtrack

- Fun and addictive gameplay

- Wonderful characters and humour

Cons:

- Timings can be a bit wack

- The parry tutorial suuuuuucks

[dead-set-goat]

Although spotify does it for you, i think it’s better to make your own music-year-review list. I want to share a few songs (and maybe a few words about them too) that have inspired, helped, impressed or spoke to me. This is also a very light personal year-review.

No particular order!

Every Day is Halloween by Ministry

Obviously, listened to this constantly in October but really works any day of the year, the message gets me going. Moving away from my parents and my hometown that very October, I felt free as all hell, free to be who I want to be, dress how I want to dress (or at least try!), it makes me want to fight for my skin :

I exclusively listen to music from an MP3 player when I’m out, fuck smartphones :))))))))), so the story of this: downloaded this whole album to my MP3 player for my trip to Greece this summer because I’d be out a lot, was just curious about ska punk, never listened to it before. And yeah, I fell in love with this, and Capdown. I listen to this when I’m on a rush always, gets me flying! (Yeah, nothing beats running and panicking about being late to an appointment to this)

Can’t recommend Swans early stuff enough! And the new stuff as well. Could swap this for Power for Power on Filth as well. Really good mechanic beats and cold lyrics, walking through a city as lively as it is decayed to this feels just right. A great inspiration for what I’d like to achieve with my music.

I quite enjoy (love with a burning passion) this album for the most part, I don’t listen to drum n’ bass on it’s own but, the metal combo to me hits just perfect. I think this song has the perfect amount of agression, melancholy, explosive distortion, and the best whiney guitar ever! I swear I can hear words of lament in that guitars voice… it’s awesome. It’s a very good song to drown out the noise of the Subway…

This album as a whole. My anxieties and anticipations for the future, my nostalgia and existential terror, agitated into soundwaves. Listening to this, on a suffocating late August afternoon while driving, feels like a thousand spent lifetimes.

I listened to this on easily one of the most emotionally charged days of my life. I was on a car trip across the country, it really hits different with neverending crop fields and rural sights and abandoned factories… For more context about the song, it’s a mockery of the former communist regime, the singer is posing as the dictator, singing about a carefree land preparing for winter, in which “everything is wonderful” and “perfect”.

This is a commuting staple. An industrial rock banger! I think the sound is easy to get into, good for guitars, good for the dance floors, a perfect combo. A fair bit of Machines of Loving Grace songs hooked me instantly.

Absolute dance staple. Strapped it to a wall in the hall of dancing-with-your-last-breath.

I had a panic attack while driving to this, on a bridge. That was an exciting time. I was going to the beach. In the winter. All the vibes were off that day, but in the best way possible. And this song took them all, it’s preserving them like alcohol. Oh also, saw a guy at the gym near my house that had a HEALTH tshirt and I was like, yoo, cool! Because really, rarely do you see people with taste here hah.

One of my industrial fascinations. Not exactly the eye opener (I’ll have that guy show up later), but my, sound has never felt so powerful and it’s not even booming-lound. I highly suggest listening this surround, but even stereo, it’s such a disorienting, enveloping experience.

OH SHIT. Audio limit for this post???

Look out for part 2

[pixxyofice]

would syncing korsica with the mp3 player make it play different songs at a different bpm than when it was chai’s? would the songs sound distorted (either because the mp3 was chai’s and he kicked it or because it’s not fully set up with korsica? an example of what i mean is the song floating point by The Algorithm)?

(mostly wondering this because a different/faster bpm could work better with different attacks, aka i’m thinking of this as pertaining to actual mechanics for some reason. on an unrelated note, rather than parrying and dodging, could korsica parry and repel attacks using her wind… abilities?)

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH Y

It would make them play at different speeds and different songs and maybe be a bit distorted because Chai kicked it and also korsica's not fully set up with it. Basically it's a combo of both.

It helps with different types of combos as you said! I've been thinking about that as well, hah.

Ooo parrying and repeling with her wind abilities sounds clever! Could use her batons as a cross guard in front of her, but maybe certain attacks can be parried with her wind stuff- like, say, fire,

[memoirmemories]

memoirs ; 2

ksshhhh...

crackle of static

he…

loud slam

th.. blaste... ..achine better n... give up on m.. now!

hey, it's me again. yes, the girl stranded in 7020. had a bit of a scare with androids outside my... well, let's call it 'home', last night. it's become a routine ordeal. what i do is flick off the generator from my room and keep as silent as a mouse till the alarms cease. oddly enough, these androids seem oblivious to the sound. spent ages figuring out how to mute the alarms before realizing they just don't react to them. small victories, i guess.

what else, what else... oh! for those sending good vibes, thank you! today's a lucky day. amidst some debris, i found a battery for my camera. fixed the pixel issue, but there's still this interference. could be radiation or something messing with the images.

i've got a picture for you...

as i mentioned, there's interference, but it's through this very device that i'm reaching out to the past. do i understand how it works? not a clue. but it's working, and that's what counts.

found more food today. you might wonder what sustenance looks like here. well, let's just say i'm barely surviving on canned veggies from desolate grocery stores and rare fruits that taste like bitter grapes. hooray for accidental veganism, right? as for hunting... the animals here are riddled with some grotesque parasite. no way am i risking that in my system, cooked or not. i'll try to snag a photo of one soon; they're eerily alert, like the parasite has ears. even my breath scares them away, so it'll be a challenge.

but hey, not just one picture today! i also captured an android. took a quick shot from behind a building.

there it was, just patrolling. they mostly just roam, beep, and whir. managed to get some cool graffiti in the shot too. might try replicating it if i can find some spray paint or something.

god, i wish i could have a two-way conversation with anyone out there. honestly, i'm not even sure this is transmitting anything. just going by what the screen suggests and a whole lot of hope. starved for human contact, so this is as good as it gets for now. if anyone's listening, a response, a voice, would mean everything.

a bit of clarification from my last message: time here is a total enigma. yes, the camera tells me the time, but it doesn't match up with the light outside. and it never really gets dark here. that constant light in the photos? that's the norm. it fluctuates, but not often. i turn off the camera when not in use to save battery life, so i can't constantly check the time.

i think i took the computer picture around 18:00. but now, exhaustion's setting in. been nursing a headache for days, and i'm dehydrated. need to boil some water... been procrastinating on that.

i'll try to share my music with you tomorrow. found an mp3 player a year ago. only three songs on it, but they're my lifeline. the battery lasts, thankfully, as i conserve it like gold.

so, that's it for today. hoping to connect again soon... if there's anyone out there. cheers.

a prolonged sigh, then silence, before the transmission ends

[songsfordustmites]

so i was tagged by the lovely @autumngore to share my top 5 songs in my "on repeat" playlist. clearly that playlist is generated by spotify and i'm not a guy who uses that so here is what my phone says.

right, so i feel like i have to explain things. i only listen to full albums so that's why it is all songs from the same EP. i think it's interesting that this at the top when my phone says that my most played album is 'why?' by they might be giants, but i think that the EP not being my most played album might correlate with how often i listen to these outside of my band's discography in chronological order playlists. i think they're just counted as individual song plays and not album plays when i add the whole playlist to my queue instead of adding just the album by itself. does this make sense? samsung, how is this done?

this whole thing made me wonder if windows media player can do a similar thing since i listen to music on my computer the most and it can apparently! i've figured it out. i made a playlist where i set it to add songs that have over 100 plays and here is what it added.

so it's basically the same fucking thing. alright. i am quite surprised by this and i feel like tmbg should be in here somewhere, but they have a huge discography where i listen to each album at the same frequency so it'll take awhile for them to appear. steve has about thirty songs so with the obsession that i had, i could only listen to these fucking songs and nothing more so i guess it makes sense that he's the only one there.

now, i have used spotify before many times so let's see what has been put in that playlist for me.

alright...i have to explain this. sweet young thing is there for some reason because some person i follow posted the link to it and said some thing about it and i clicked on it because i couldn't remember what the song sounded like so i wanted to hear it. i do not think i listened to the full thing. i think i listened to the soft bulletin once on spotify. friends..my friend shared it to me and that was the first time i heard it and ever since i just listen to the mp3 that i have of it. silly hat is on here because i wanted to see what blue's clues albums were on spotify. i have that cd now. i used to listen to the spongebob squarepants movie soundtrack a lot on here. i should get a copy of it. also it said all of these were added in 2021. i have heard other things on spotify since then so i don't know why they chose these songs.

aw shit i was just supposed to post a picture and that's it, but i got too caught up in the data that i just had to compare!

[avee155]

The Apple iPhone is a well-known communicating device from the house of Apple. The highly advanced mobile telephony features as well as stunning design of the gadget turns the head of the onlooker at the very first glance. One could say that the gadget is a perfect blend of performance and utility.

And the best part is that it comes with easy-to-use touchscreen controls, iPod features as well as image setting options. Besides the multimedia capabilities, this iPhone from Apple also offers some of the latest and the best connectivity options for downloading or sharing important files with other compatible devices.With a small and sleek profile, the handset measures 115mm in height, 61mm in width and 11.6mm thickness and weighs 135grams. The users can easily carry this compact gadget in purses or pockets. The casing of the Apple iPhone comes in a selection of popular colours namely - glossy black and white.

The huge multi-coloured touchscreen of the handset acts as a brilliant display for viewing the data and vibrant graphics. The screen measures 3.5 inches and provides a high resolution of 320 x 480 pixels. As a matter of fact, the multicolored screen is based on a new Mac OS X based user-interface.The owners are able to type in messages on this device, as the iPhone displays a touch QWERTY keyboard on its widescreen. This advanced keyboard comes complete with predictive text that automatically corrects the typing errors. Therefore, it can be said that this QWERTY keyboard provides a user-friendly input method. The owners can enjoy creating text messages, multimedia messages as well as emails, using the touch keyboard. The email facility on the Apple comes with graphics, images & photo attachments as well.

The built in touchscreen music controls help the owners to play, pause, rewind and fast forward the music on the MP3 player. Moreover, the owners can view their album covers on the wide screen. Apart from that, the iPhone comes with a touchscreen search facility that can be used for searching by song, album, artist or playlists. The advanced controls and easy to create music playlists make the gadget all the more interesting. The integrated camera and video capabilities are used for capturing the still images and short videos. The advanced photo management applications provide the users with perfect finish to each and every shot. Like the music capabilities, the video functions can also be controlled by a mere touch.This handset provides real mobile Internet experience to the users. The built-in safari Internet browser can make life easy for the people who need to remain connected with the latest developments taking place. The high-end connectivity options include EDGE, Bluetooth, USB and Wi-Fi for fast & efficient data & file transfers. This handset works well over a GSM quad-band network that allows seamless communication, across the world.

The Apple iPhone is available in two memory options i.e. 4GB and 8GB. Therefore, depending upon the storage requirements, the owners can opt for either of the two. This massive memory storage allows the users to store the varied content without any problem. This smartphone comes with a fitted battery that provides up to 16 hours worth of music playback and approximately 5 hours of talk time, which includes call time, video time as well as Internet browsing time.

isn't just a suggestion but a statement of what is going to happen with most people who want to get themselves Apple's new smartphone this year. There is always a long wait for the new Apple smartphone; specially if you are not in the States. If you are in a country in Asia, this wait may last up to months, specially if you want to get the new iPhone X this year. Now a lot of people are going to be reading this and wondering why because this year, for the first time ever, Apple is rolling out the new iPhone X simultaneously to many countries. The iPhone X goes on sale on the same date in thirteen more countries as it does in North America, which is the 3rd of November. However, that is just theoretical. Anyone who has tried to buy a new iPhone in a retail store or even online, on the day of launch, in any country across the world will know that it is almost impossible. The retail stores have just a few units in stock that are sold out to the people who camp outside the stores for days, waiting to get their hands on the new Apple hotness. Online stores sell out even faster and within minutes if not seconds, the iPhones are back ordered and ship dates slip back to many weeks.

This year was no different and the iPhone X has opened up for pre-order just a few days ago. On the midnight when the Apple online store started accepting orders, those people who did not manage to place their orders for the phone within the first few minutes already started seeing that the phone was back ordered and that their phones would not ship for 4 or even 5 weeks. Those customers that had also bought iPhone covers with their phones realised that their iPhone X case would ship before the phone itself and they'd receive the case before the phone for which it was meant.

iPhone X Cases for your new phone

Customers in countries outside North America who try to buy the iPhone X online are going to have to wait even longer because the phone will probably be available in brick and mortar retail stores long before it is available with online sellers. There too quantities of the iPhone X will be very limited until 2018, so customers are probably going to have a much easier time finding great designer iPhone X cases and iPhone X back covers for their phones, than they are in actually getting the phones.

Almost all major Indian cases sellers and accessory makers have launched their range of iPhone X covers and some are even let prospective iPhone X owners create their own iPhone X custom case with their own photos. All of these iPhone X cases should ship within a few days, so within a week or so, there are going to be a ton of Indian customers who have their iPhone X back covers ready in anticipation of a phone that they haven't even been given the chance to buy yet!

Within one month at the end of 2014, two major smartphone competitors released their newest models, entering themselves into the growing "phablet" market. In September, the Apple iPhone 6 Plus was released, and in October, Google reacted with their Nexus 6. We compare the key features of both smartphones to aid consumer decisions on which manufacturer's device to opt for.

Design & Build Quality

The Nexus 6 measures at 6.27 x 3.27 x 0.40 inches with a 6.0 inch display. It is larger than the iPhone 6 Plus, which measures at a smaller and thinner 5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27 inches, holding a 4.7 inch display. Naturally, the Nexus 6 weighs more than the iPhone by approximately 10 grams. The iPhone case is composed entirely of aluminium, giving it an elegant and premium design, while the Nexus 6 has a contoured aluminium front but a cheaper plastic back.

Display Quality

The Nexus 6 has a larger display, and boasts a far higher 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution than its competitor, which only displays 1920 x 1080 pixels per inch. If you can accept some plastic within the build of the Nexus, then you're getting a larger screen in as small amount of space as possible. The screen-to-body ratio of the Nexus 6 is a high 74.03% while the iPhone offers a lower 65%.

Performance

The Nexus 6 packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor offering 2.7GHz with a very high 3GB of RAM. The iPhone 6 Plus boasts a lower 1GB of RAM but holds a custom-built, 64-bit A8 processor and M8 motion co-processor that performs extremely well in tests against the Nexus 6. A key feature of the Google Nexus 6 is the dual front-facing speakers, allowing clear sound targeted towards the user as opposed to the iPhone's bottom-facing speakers next to the charger port.

Photography

Smartphone users increasingly are ditching their separate cameras and using their phone instead, pushing the importance of internal cameras. While the Nexus 6 offers a 13-megapixel camera, which is high in comparison to the iPhone's 8-megapixel lens, both devices deliver similar results in final picture quality. Those obsessed with "selfie" photos will be more attracted to Google's 2-megapixel front facing camera in comparison to Apple's lower 1.2-megapixel front lens.

Battery Life

One of our most important measures is the ability of a smartphone to match its capabilities to its power supply. A beast of a device is useless unless it can power itself efficiently. The Google Nexus 6 wins with a higher standby time 13.8 days compared to the iPhone 6 Plus' poor standby time of 10.4 days. As both models are strenuous on their batteries, don't be surprised if you're device lives longer next to a wall plug than in your hand.

Final Verdict

The Nexus 6 outshines the iPhone 6 Plus with its more advanced capabilities and higher standards of features commonly used by consumers. A better screen and camera sheds light on its advance into the media-obsessed market. But it cannot beat Apple's overall design quality and sleekness, fitting well in the hand while maintaining build strength with its fully aluminium casing.

The latest trend of the innovative powerhouse, Apple, is to release new iPhone models as a pair. The iPhone 5C, which comes in a range of colours, was branded as the "affordable iPhone model". Whereas the iPhone 5S was branded as their premium model with better features, and of course arriving at a premium price. The iPhone 6 is their latest smartphone upgrade, while the 6 Plus is a clear jump into the "phablet" market as Apple rivals with other major competitors. As with any manufacturer, Apple bombards the market with advertisements for their latest releases where profit margins are high and first adopters begin the trend to get their hands on the latest smartphone devices.

Yet when you compare the prices of all iPhone models on the market along with their true technical differences, there is consistently a significant difference in price yet an insignificant change in capabilities and performance. Is the iPhone 6 really an innovative jump from its predecessor or just a minor step up with a few new gimmicks?

When you compare internal changes, you'll find the newer models will have Apple's latest A-chips at a higher GHz and an increase in processor cores, along with new memory capacities. On paper, these changes sound like worthy reasons to upgrade, but when you compare models in reality, side by side, the changes are small and relative. It may be ever so slightly faster and more responsive, but you'll soon get used to this and notice insignificant differences. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are prime examples of Apple bringing new models with elegant designs to appeal to fans yet not actually upgrading much on the inside.

Whether you're a loyal Apple fan with a now old device, or a newcomer looking to dabble in sophisticated, smooth smartphones, it's always worth spending a bit of time trying every model available and consider the real differences between them. You'll find they run similarly, but come at totally different prices. Whatever model you choose, ensure you opt for a suitable internet data package, as all iPhone models tend to eat through data with automatic services constantly updating through 3G and 4G. Most package deals now include unlimited texts as more and more users simply message through internet services anyway, such as Apple's 'iMessage' and Facebook's messaging portal.

Another option to consumers in the UK is to buy the device SIM-free, and purchase a SIM-only contract separately. The advantage of this? Your overall cost, on average, will very likely be significantly lower than if you were to go for a full iPhone contract. SIM only offers tend to be lower priced as no device is provided by the retailer or network, thus passing on these savings to the customer. As long as the customer can purchase their own iPhone, then it is wise to choose a SIM-only contract. Another advantage? More and more SIM-only deals are flooding the market on 30-day rolling contracts, so you won't be locked into the common 18 or 24-month contracts usually advertised.

Thus, it's always recommended to weigh your options, try all devices, decide whether you really need that higher GHz processor, and finally do the maths very carefully when choosing a contract deal. Always ensure your inclusive allowances cover what you will use, as networks charge high prices once you pass those limits. A safe bet is to opt for an optimum number of inclusive allowances as opposed to the most realistic choice.

[henryhina]

oh and more about. The actual thing I think about.

this is Annalise (happy and annoyed moods respectively. How I draw her really changes based off what point in my little "story" things are happening. Also pardon the elf ears, it was a doodle for a silly AU in my head)

She is a very bookish, shy and studious girl who likes playing piano but secretly adores heavy metal and rage music. Her parents are extremely restrictive, to the point where she's never been allowed to cut her hair more than dead ends. She still lives with them throughout college. She and Jaylen are childhood friends who have known one another since diapers, they've lived next to each other their whole lives. She was never allowed inside their home, but Jaylen's family consider her a wonderful family friend. If she wasn't so restricted, she would've probably been much closer with them. But Jaylen and her are way more alike than others would think. He even introduced her to metal music altogether. She keeps a secret MP3 player full of songs in her drawer to listen to.

Kane falls intensely in love with Annalise, who is completely unaware. He starts to write songs about her, dream about her, think about her nonstop, being her up in passing. Jaylen figures out something is amiss when all of Kane's musical work and taste become based on this intense love for someone who barely notices them (Even though Annalise thinks Kane is a total cutie pie).

Hijinks ensue and Kane accidentally comes off as creepy/rude multiple times before Jaylen helps translate and Annalise grows to understand him. Jaylen's inner insecurities and self-hate are exposed after he confesses that they're worried Kane will leave him after finding a partner.

Basically Kane is a silly autistic boy in love with a silly musician girl that has a secret rage inside her and Jaylen helps as an insane ADHD mediator/wingperson

They've never been even remotely romantically involved

(these are my OCs I was talking about. The one on the left is Kane and the right is Jaylen. They are Besties)

[herrlindemann]

ROCK HARD - June 2004 - Interview with Paul Landers

Germany's currently most successful rock band was completely submerged for a year. Although the DVD 'Lichtspielhaus' was released recently, the actual concentration of the six Rammstein musicians is solely on the next studio album. Guitarist Paul Landers exclusively answered our questions shortly after Easter and revealed everything worth knowing about the upcoming record, about interpersonal problems within the band, about the relationship with Wladimir Klitschko and about the attempt to lyrically process a cannibal.

Paul, where are you right now?

At home in Berlin. Shortly before Easter we flew from Stockholm, where we are recording our new record, to Germany. Our producer and our mixer have families and children. That's why they just wanted to switch off over Easter.

Is this break in your interest, or did it burst into a creative phase?

Since we are also family people, we didn't find it bad at all. Olli likes to surf and tries to spend every free minute at the sea to quickly jump on a board. He spent Easter on the Baltic Sea, and now we're practically on our way to Stockholm again.

Before we get to Stockholm and the new record, I'd like to talk to you about the past.

Yes, so the band name comes from...(laughs)

Have you been listening to your previous albums, especially 'Mutter’, lately?

Yes. Recently, when we were in the middle of pre-production, I bought an mp3 player and put our albums on it. Then I walked around town all day and listened to all the songs we had.

Did you ever notice that at the time of your debut, 'Herzeleid’, everyone was philosophizing about the incredible guitar sound, but the true sound wonder 'Mutter’ was almost taken for granted?

I don't know now which is better and worse. At least the fact is that 'Herzeleid' sounds rawer. 'Mutter’, on the other hand, sounds smoother, more produced. However, 'Herzeleid' was then in a more extreme position than 'Mutter’ years later. Don't forget when the albums came out. 'Mutter' came out at a time (2001) when many other guitar bands were making records that sounded as good or better than our songs. That's why 'Mutter’ didn't go down in history as a milestone. In hindsight, I find 'Herzeleid' rather cute and today I don't think: Wow, what a sound!

Your producer was Jacob Hellner from the start. To exaggerate: when he hears his work on 'Mutter’, he should almost be ashamed of 'Herzeleid'.

He learned as much as we did and at the time did the best work he was capable of. Both he and we went to our limit at the time. When I see an old photo of myself, I feel ashamed of the clothes I wore back then. Then I think: man, what were you wearing back then? It becomes difficult when I already know now that I think it's very good and that in three years' time I'll also be ashamed. It's always like that.

And is it the same with your sound?

Exactly. At first you think in awe: Mannomann! That's what the Beatles used to think after hearing their four-track recordings. According to the motto: Now the bass drum really has steam (laughs)! And that's exactly how it is with us. When we hear our new songs today, we are totally blown away by the sound and think: Awesome! But in ten years the record will be in the oldie department.

It is said that with 'Mutter’ you couldn't repeat your previous success in the USA and instead had to start from scratch.

Not from the start. But we had a huge success with our second record 'Sehnsucht' and with the single 'Du hast'. That single did fantastic in the States and we had way more success than we could ever have imagined. We took this success for granted and thought: Alright, America is at our feet! Later we were surprised that 'Mutter’ wasn't doing so well.

At first we thought we had to play over there more often. So that's what we did. However, there was also the fact that a certain person, who had looked after us fantastically up until then, left our American record company. This person was infected by us and that is exactly why it is so valuable to us. And England showed that things can be done differently: 'Mutter’ was our most successful record there. All in all, it was certainly helpful for us to experience that things can go not only uphill, but also downhill. However, we were able to cope well with the decline in America because things were going very well in Europe.

Isn't it the case for rock bands in the USA: out of sight, out of mind?

No, because the closer Rammstein fan community isn't there like before. We are established in Europe. In the States, on the other hand, we are still considered exotic, a kind of insider tip with a certain, solid basis. And that base is about 2,000 people per concert. And the people who go beyond that base belong to the "out of sight, out of mind" category.

What were you doing at half past four in the morning on Easter Sunday?

Wait a minute, I can tell you exactly that: I just dreamed of a camel.

So you weren't sitting in front of the telly watching heavyweight boxing?

Klitschko? No, I have not.

I'm asking because your hit 'Sonne' was originally intended as a marching anthem for Wladimir Klitschko.

Yes, but the song was too hard for him.

Was the song really too hard, or do Klitschko think that Rammstein is an evil band?

Does that mean that Klitschko is too nice? Maybe (laughs). We thought it up really well: The whole arena counts — one, two, three, up to ten, and then "Out!”. Exactly at "Out!” Klitschko comes into the arena and goes to the ring. The moment he raises his arms in the ring, the chorus sounds: "Here comes the sun! “ That was the plan.

Anyway, the idea was great.

Yes, the idea was good. He should have done that, then maybe he wouldn't have suffered defeats. As for his last fight, I think someone put something in his water.

Maybe it was just fear that paralyzed him.

No, he was obviously in shape.

Or it was fear of one's own courage.

He may not have any courage to be afraid of. Ah, I don't know. Maybe someone who finds Rammstein too hard is too soft for boxing. He's too weak.

Was 'Sonne’ created specifically because of Klitschko?

Yes, if there hadn't been this request back then, the song wouldn't have existed like this. When the request came, Till sat down and described the topic of boxing in words so that it didn't seem so flat. And then the song came into being in the rehearsal room.

What if there was a request from hockey, football or wrestling?

Oh no, we like the Klitschkos. I also think that the two brothers still have their careers ahead of them.

In any case, one of your best songs ever remained from the failed story.

And that's why it didn't matter that things didn't work out with Klitschko. The song was good. In any case, we thought: You can't force someone to be happy. If someone really wants to march in to Tina Turner's 'You're Simply The Best', they can. It's a nice song too (chuckles).

And then there was a video clip with the big Snow White and you as six little dwarfs.

Yes, we generally try not to translate a video clip as a one-to-one text translation. In addition to the text, the viewer should be offered images that create another level that he would never reach without images.

Does the example 'Sonne' show that you are not fixed in terms of content and that you cannot be grasped, or does it show that the Rammstein brand is primarily about imagination?

It shows that we're pretty great. Before Snow White, we had the idea that there would be six of us on the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

You're not serious.

Yes! First comes the refrain - "Here comes the sun" - then the bomb goes off. However, we would have shown it as it really was. The pilots who sat in the atomic bomb planes are already dead. They took their own lives after being shattered by what they had done.

Immediately after the drop, one of the pilots yelled: "Oh, my God! What have I done?”

Exactly. The pilots had forfeited their lives. Anyway, we wanted to show how six people can do something like that.

Not a single music station would have broadcast this clip, especially not in the USA.

You shouldn't think like that. You have to think that you want to make a good video. Whether it will then be sent is the second question. However, that was one of many ideas that we ultimately scrapped. We now also calculate whether the masses could misunderstand us and our concerns. I can tell from your reaction that people wouldn't have understood us. At least I would have liked it if the atomic bomb had gone off in contrast to the beautiful chorus. Nobody could have resisted a corresponding feeling.

Certainly not. But the general public would completely misunderstand you. They would be outraged.

That's what everyone thinks. And that's why it's bullshit.

But what would have happened if it had worked out with Klitschko? Do you have an idea up your sleeve for this case?

Nope I don't know what would have happened then. Maybe then we would have done something together with Klitschko. But that would have been a shame, because we really enjoyed the Snow White story. The video shoot lasted two days. If we didn't feel like driving home from Babelsberg, we immediately slept in the little dwarf house. A friend of ours drove to the gas station and got a box with various drinks. After that we got locked in the studio and had a real dwarf party in the dwarf house. In the making-of part of the 'Lichtspielhaus' - DVD there is a place where Flake looks a bit disorganized and has some difficulties.

'Mutter’ was created to a large extent in a little house on the Baltic Sea...

The songs come from different places. But then we usually go to a place to record them as pre-production. As if summarizing all the notes. The last time the pre-production took place in Heiligendamm on the Baltic Sea.

The Baltic Sea seems to be very important to you, because some of you used to spend the summer time on the island of Hiddensee with your band Feeling B during the GDR era.

We still do. There are only two ways to go: Either you go to the mountains or to the sea.

Did you get to know each other better than ever in the little house in Heiligendamm - that is, in a small space?

No. The best way to get to know each other is on tour, because it doesn't get any closer than that. It's a bit like in the submarine. Every now and then you turn up and play a concert (laughs).

How did your new album come about? How can we imagine your new record without hearing a sound?

In contrast to our previous three albums, the new record was written in a different constellation. The ones who used to bring in a lot of ideas have stepped back this time, and those who used to have few song ideas are much more represented this time.

Who belongs to which group?

That is not important. It is important that the new album has a different tone color for the reason mentioned. And: In contrast to the last record, we had a lot of fun this time. The knot has broken. Also, due to time constraints for songwriting and pre-production, we didn't leave this time, but stayed in Berlin.

Does your statement mean that you had little fun working on 'Mutter'?

Yeah, 'Mutter’ really wasn't that much fun. The famous third album, as the saying goes. There were also personal reasons. After eight or nine years, the balance of power had shifted within the band. It actually happens in every band that Ritchie Blackmore quits because he can't go on with Jon Lord anymore. For years their friction was refreshing for the listeners, but at some point it gets on everyone involved so much that one has to drop out.

But nobody left Rammstein.

No, not that. But we also had gossip and stress between two people because of competence difficulties as well as over- and underestimation. We had to reorient ourselves. It also cracked. But — I knock on wood! — we got through it well, so we could work on the fourth album with fun.

You certainly don't want to mention the names of the two.

Correct. It can happen to anyone, because everyone is unreasonable from time to time.

Back to the richness of tone again: Can you speak of any major differences to 'Mutter’?

We tried to embed the vocals even more into the music. Or to put it another way: the music is more than ever a ring in which the singing comes into its own. Like ten white tigers. A platform, an aircraft carrier for the words (chuckles).

Very lyrically put...

Yes, I try to find the best words. In any case, the planes have to be able to take off nicely (laughs). Also, there are fewer riffs on the record because the guitars are kinda different.

More like a guitar rug?

I do not know it either. Somehow different. But there are people who have listened to it. In any case, for me the album is already different from 'Mutter’, and for the attentive Rammstein fan it certainly is too. Maybe not for my grandma, but every AC/DC song sounds the same to her. So do we: for some it will sound different, for others the new record is exactly the same. And both parties are probably right.

As someone who still appreciates your performance on 'Mutter’, I would like to say quite heretically: the new record can only be a disappointment. It's almost impossible to top 'Mutter’ or at least match it with an equal successor.

But I'm not making a record to top the last one. I always try to make a good album. Now that may sound boring. But your girlfriend won't break up with you either because you have a better...Okay, maybe that's a bad example (laughs).

You can really only find one girlfriend, any one. If you're lucky, it's a good one, and if you're unlucky, she looks pretty but she's daft. A woman can be pretty and everyone thinks, man, why doesn't he stay with her? But her character is completely insane. An album can also sound good, but it must also be fun to write this album. It has often been my experience that people who are less successful work very hard and without fun to be successful. And that, in contrast, people who tend to languish are mostly in good spirits. I have also met people who are very successful and who are totally relaxed.

What can I say: Metallica also continued after their black album. You don't write a good album so that you can't make another one afterwards. Rather, you try to make a good album every time. Or to put it diplomatically: another album, a further development.

Single song titles and various album titles are already floating around. Which titles actually exist?

First the record was going to be be called 'Amore', then 'Rosenrot', and finally we got to 'Rot'. At the moment it has no name at all and we call it 'The Red Album' in everyday parlance. We used to always choose the title after one of the songs, but that doesn't come out on this record. For example, a song is called 'Stein um Stein'. That somehow doesn't fit as an album title. So we're still looking. Another piece is called 'Rosenrot'.

Which is definitely about a woman...

It's about women always wanting something. And the man does it even though he knows it's not good — not good for either of them. But he does it anyway, and in the end he dies. What else can I tell you? A song about Moscow is included. And one about America.

Because you've been to both Russia and the US?

Not necessarily. One song is specifically about the city of Moscow. The America song is about our current relationship with America and the current situation. Lots of people bitch about America, opinion has swung against America a lot lately — because of that country's impeccable foreign policy (chuckles).

On the other hand, I looked in my closet. There were four jackets from America hanging in there. If you complain that the Americans get involved everywhere and are everywhere, then you should start with yourself. It's true that America is everywhere. But in many cases it can only be there because it is wanted. They don't force you to go to Burger King or put on Levi's. In this respect, it is about the positive and the negative in one whole.

A topic that would have been unthinkable at Rammstein five years ago.

Yes, but the America song in particular came to mind, because when we started work on the record, the Iraq war was on. You couldn't avoid that. We weren't looking for such a song theme, rather it was over-present.

By the way: Another innovation is that a little Russian and a little English is sung on the record. Possibly also French, but we don't know that yet. The album isn't designed to be international, but it's not one hundred percent German.

Russian isn't that far off.

Well, everything and nothing is far-fetched.

In any case, Russian fits very well with Till's form of expression.

We weren't specifically looking for that. It just turned out that way.

Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, your fellow guitarist, once said in an earlier interview that you want to make pop music with heavy riffs. Pop music also means that you reach a wide audience. At what point can one say in the case of Rammstein that you've reached a large audience, and at what point would an album be a flop in your eyes?

You have reached a broad mass when you look into the audience and there are men with mustaches standing there.

Everyone has a different definition of when an album is a flop. Personally, I don't go so much by sales numbers. Michael Jackson has sold about 40 billion or 40 million copies of 'Thriller' (laughs). The record after it only managed eight million and was a flop in his eyes and in the eyes of the media.

Eight million! That would be an absolute rocket for us. In this respect, it is a matter of opinion what a flop is.

Let's get back to the DVD 'Lichtspielhaus'. I find both the bank robbery clip and the making-of of 'Ich will’ impressive. This clip required tremendous acting. Did you have to practice for it, or did you develop a certain momentum during the shooting because you realized that the clip could be a real hit?

So if boys are allowed to play shooting, they don't need extra training for it. No, that was easy for us, especially since each of us has criminal tendencies. But it was also hard at times: after this shoot I wouldn't want to rob a bank because this special task force KSK — or SEK or something like that — is really tough. Richard told them not to go easy on it, just make it look real. The guys slapped us so brutally on the floor that my nose bled the first time I turned. You can't see that in the clip.

Unfortunately, the video didn't run very long on TV because it came at a time when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. So people weren't too keen on a video clip of bank robbers taking hostages. Osama was first and we couldn't top that.

How big was the effort for this clip?

One day of shooting in and around the GDR State Council building.

How much does something like that cost?

You're asking the wrong person. In any case, our manager had negotiated a good video budget with the record company. Normally a band gets around 30,000 euros there. We had maybe 300,000 euros. I don't know, but I'm guessing. We were just lucky, because at that time the treaties from peacetime still existed before the whole dilemma began with the majors.

Your bass player Olli says in the making-of that your self-confidence when it comes to your own songs is washed. Does that mean that you weren't particularly comfortable with your early songs, with which you had incredible success?

No, we were just six naïve East Germans who were let loose on trained journalists. And we've awkwardly tried to resist things we shouldn't have resisted. When I read or listen to our old interviews, I always feel a bit ashamed. On the one hand we had no idea and on the other hand we always meant the best. But actually, from today's perspective, it's just embarrassing.

If people accused me of being right-wing radicals today, I would just giggle. In the past, I would have launched a lengthy defense speech. Kind of like: "But we... There and there..."

At that time, after all these accusations, we only started to think about who we are, what we have done and where we wanted to go. In the beginning we just started without thinking about what we are doing.

The piece 'Ich will’ is to be seen as a homage to being a rock star.

Exactly.

Other bands behave in an awkward manner on stage, annoy with percussion solos and animate with “Heyheyhey!” - and “Ohohoh!” - Call the audience to participate. You've exacerbated the whole thing by making fun of it.

The song is typical for us, because it's meant to be ironic, but then again it's not. Of course we're making fun of bands that start these join-in choirs. But we use it ourselves. We're also happy when people stand down and raise their arms and sing along. When we played 'Seemann' for the first time, we were terribly embarrassed that lighters were waved in the audience. It's okay now because it's part of it.

But there are different ways of animation. You can stand at the edge of the stage like Robbie Williams or Fred Durst and put your hand to your ear, which I find totally disgusting. I find sayings like: “Oh, this city here, Berlin. I love you, it's insane. It's the best concert of the whole tour." This is disgusting gluttony. But either people don't notice it or they don't see it as a prank. In this respect, these musicians should continue to do so.

You, on the other hand, generally don't talk on stage.

The man from the 'Tagesschau' doesn't say anything between the news either. He just presents the facts. It must be enough.

So Rammstein live means: facts, facts, facts.

(Laughs) We let the flames speak for us and don't have to say anything about it. There are many bands that don't talk. And there are bands that I find it cute when they talk a lot. For example Die Ärzte. I think the announcements are better than the music. When Farin talks, I'm happy.

What influence do daily events around the world and looking at the newspaper in the morning have on your ideas for songs and lyrics?

There are influences. For example, we're considering putting a piece about Armin Meiwes, the cannibal from Rotenburg, on our album.

Meiwes was convicted of eating another man...

What do you say: would you have judged him?

Morally, ha. I don't know whether he can be legally convicted.

Morally? Not that. He is legally to be condemned.

If you asked me to cook and eat you...

I would not do that.

But what if. And suppose I actually ate you. Then I would be a creature who should also be condemned from a moral point of view...

You cook your soup chicken too, and it didn't even ask you to. I find it a bit cheeky: When two people make up, one person asks, "Will you marry me?”, and the other one says “Yes, okay!”, because as a third party you don't interfere in their affairs. That's what the two actors in the cannibal story wanted. And if they were fine doing it, I see no reason to get involved.

That's what the stuff movies are made of.

If we did a music video about it, we could take parts from the original video that was shown in court.

But back to the topic: We can't imagine in our imagination that there are people who think it's good when they're peed on. Or that men who work in managerial positions find it good to be humiliated and whipped in a brothel. But there's all that, and there's a lot more, a lot more crass stuff. And when one of the crass things comes to light, everyone is suddenly surprised. Although such things always and everywhere exist.

And what if a cannibal goes unpunished, finds the next victim, kills and eats them against their will - but claims it was consensual?

He can have this confirmed in writing beforehand, quasi by a notary. Like euthanasia, which I support, by the way. I also think it's crazy that you have to buckle up in the car. Everyone should decide for themselves whether they want to buckle up or not. In general, I find the prescribing of security stupid. Everyone should do what they want. I don't mean speed limits in dangerous places. If someone is so stupid and thunders around the corner too fast, they should be punished for it. But if he doesn't want to buckle up, he's supposed to have the right to die on the tree.

Or traffic lights on the street: I have never signed anywhere in my life with which I agreed that I could go green and have to stop at red. I think it's cheeky that I have to stick to these rules. There used to be a forest here through which you could walk freely. Today there is a street with a traffic light. Actually, every citizen should take an oath at the beginning of his life: "I am willing to submit to myself here.” Instead, you are born and you are told: “Well, now join in here! Go join the army and get yourself shot for us! Pay taxes and stop at red”.

Were you in the army?

No, I didn't have time for that. But I pay quite a lot of taxes. If I get two apples from my record company, I have to give one apple back immediately.

[callofdooty]

Okay Kip, I know you said it was Keegan who was "Numb" by Linkin Park, but it is SUCH a Logan song.

Don't know what you're expecting of me Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes

Is that not just Logan bitching about Rorke choosing him to be another exorcist? (What I've decided the name is for whatever the Federation made Rorke into. Yeah it's a play on words.)

All I want to do Is be more like me And be less like you

Hello? Logan wanting to be Logan again and not what the Federation tried making him?

But I know You were just like me with someone disappointed in you

Also this is just me adoring the HC that Logan reads motherfuckers like a book and does so with Rorke.

(Also: I Hc that Logan likes Linkin Park a bit too much, so that's why this is happening lmao. Motherfucker has an Mp3 player with all their songs.)

GOD you are so right. I was thinking that while typing the comment (tbh it's such a good song to fit so many characters LOL) but pairing it with Logan after the game.... The angst. THE ANGST.

Logan fighting for his own autonomy and freedom against all odds, the many ways such a concept can go is sooooo fucking fascinating. Many thoughts. Many. Many thoughts.

AND YES, I can see Logan being the kind of person to just. Observe. Looking beyond what most people take upfront.

And I very much relate HAHA, Linkin Park's music is so, so good. Honestly Logan + Linkin Park songs is such a good combination too. Like if I was to list a few (all from Hybrid Theory/Meteora bcs I'm most familiar with them):

Breaking the Habit (if he's rescued by the Ghosts after some time perhaps); In The End (Maybe for him, Rorke and Hesh?); One Step Closer; Lying From You; Figure.09; Hit The Floor; Don't Stay; maybe even Point of Authority.

AND HONESTLY THERE'S SO MANY OTHER SONGS! Even from different artists (Diluted and Override by Slipknot come to mind ESPECIALLY.) (Maybe even Purity if you want to get into some severe Horror elements)

Or even this bit from No Life (link will take you straight to the section I'm talking abt):

"I can't remember, I don't understand Is it malice that makes you this way? Carry it with you 'til someone forgives you I laugh 'cause there's nothing to say You can't begin to consider the palpable hate In the air when you're here None of us wonder what weather you're under You're making it perfectly clear"

The Exorcist thing also makes me think of No Nature by A Lot Like Birds (the pure seething rage in that song is delightful honestly)

If there's one thing I absolutely love doing, it's assigning songs to character LMFAO Got my brain buzzing like a beehive and I love it